How time passes

 One minute at a time, that's how. And then suddenly it's been years. The thing which had once been a fairly integral part of life fades away and you find you no longer have the time for it. I guess those minutes that slipped past really are gone. 

    Over the years I had dreamed that this online diary would be a place where my girls could see a part of their lives from my perspective. Now that they are older I feel a little to busy with living our lives together that I don't take the time to write about it. I keep dreaming of coming back more regularly. Then I think of how much time it takes to curate it. To gather the photos and lay them all out here. It becomes quit a job. Maybe I can come back and just let this become a new place. A place with little written blips and blurbs. No fancy photo sequences. No really careful curation of the post. Just a dump of thoughts. 

    And that is exactly what this post is. A thought dump. I'm dumping here the thought of my desire to get back to this. So there it is. DUMP....

    See you in two years when I remember again that I want to do this more regularly and my oldest child is nearly driving and the one next in line is gaining strengths in places I can only dream of right now. It was nice to chat.......

Thoughts on dyslexia and homeschooling.

    I am a mother who is schooling my two girls at home. My oldest daughter caught on to reading so fast I had no clue what it was actually like to have to teach it. I used the book 100 easy lessons and it went swimmingly. She was pretty much on her own at age 5. Off like a shot so to speak. I had no clue what was coming next.

    Kid number two's turn, tried to teach her starting at around 5 as well. Why not, seeing as it is so easy. Nope! hard! Need to wait! It is clear she can't get this yet. No worries 5 is early and all. Try again every half year or so. Drop the reading for a bit as "it will click when it does and so no need to push."

    At least lets get her started on numbers. No big deal their either, right? Wrong! Why on earth are the digits after ten not called onedy one, ondey two, ondey three, and so on? How is a child supposed to remember that after 9 comes 10 and after 29 comes 30 and so on? Doesn't it just keep being twenty something, or thirty something? And now you want to tell her that there are going to be 3 digits after 99? And what is a digit even? Okay, Maybe she can count, now lets count by 2's....What is this foreign thing being taught?  A whole new number concept? This has nothing to do with the other numbers does it. This is a whole new number system to her mind.

Okay, we can get this but I guess we are going to struggle with both math and reading. I know why with reading. I had a guess early on but it is becoming clearer as the years trickle by. It would make sense after all. I have always known that I am dyslexic. I know that I will read a passage, and have to go back to re-read because what I came up with from my reading makes not a lick of sense. But this thing, this dyslexia thing is an enigma to me.

I know I have seen letters flip. I know words will totally change their form right before my eyes. I know that it takes me more than double the time to read something that my husband actually just consumes with his eyes in a way that is beyond my comprehension. My spelling is an atrocity. So bad in fact that often spell check can't even decipher what I am trying to get at. I can spell a word fifty times in a week and still have no clue how to get it right the next time. And now that I have looked it up fifty times I am totally confused. But that's it right? Nothing more. I read slow, struggle to spell and so there it is.

But.... But now I am learning what this thing is. I am learning that there are levels of severity. This does not just have to do with reading and what you "see." This is a matter of how the brain is dealing with language as a whole. This is a processing thing. Something that affects all manners of mind things. 

Why can't my girl remember the names of the numbers? Language processing! Why can she still not spell her name? Wrote memory. Trouble tying her shoes or following directions? Directionality difficulties. 

And the list goes on. So many things that we were confused about, things she just could not pick up easily or at all are finally explained under this one umbrella. The list of things that can be affected by a dyslexic mind is a lot longer than I had ever known. 

I am starting to think that I might need to spill me thoughts out on paper for awhile and this might be the form of how I do that. You see it is a lot to take in and the things I am learning is having an affect on how I look at her mind and even my own. 

So here goes. Here is the start to something new. Again.

 

My Testimony

This sunday, Oct. 22 2017 I am going to get baptized. This is the testimony I will be giving in church from the baptismal waters. There are many details "missing" from this but I don't need to go into great detail to say that God is so very good. Also I can't exactly spend half an hour up there talking as the pastor still needs to give a sermon.


                I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home where the Bible was held up to be the word of God and I was taken to church my whole life. When I was 5 years old I was led through the sinners prayer. I was told that I was then a Christian. I was baptized at the age of 7. I remember very little of it but that it was what was to be done. I had no understanding of Christ being me Lord only that He was my savior from hell.  And even that was just something I knew because I was told it. Not because I understood.

From that time until 5 years ago I led a self-centered life. I believed myself to be a righteous person and that my works were good. There was no repentance in my heart. But as it says in Proverbs 30:12 “There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.” Every “good” work that I did was self-seeking.  I wanted to be seen and loved by mankind and to have the praises of man. My heart was deceived and full of wickedness. All I desired when reading Gods word was to have my selfish desires fulfilled. I read into the scripture my own thoughts and changed it in my mind to fit to my liking. I had built up a god in my own image. Just as Romans 1:22 says. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” I was a great fool.

Then 5 years ago I heard a sermon that caused my eyes to be opened. I was deaf and then I could hear, blind and I saw, dead and then brought to life. A heart of stone made new, into a heart of flesh. The word of God broke through and gave me a new life. Romans 5:6-11  “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Not by works of my own but by Jesus death on the cross am I now saved.  

Since that day 5 years ago I have grown in my desire for God and His word. No longer seeking my own praises and glory but instead desiring to do all things to the glory of God. I am far from being faithful but He is proving to be faithful to me. Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, That He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” And so Today I wish to be baptized in obedience to His word. 

Thanks for reading this and rejoicing with me in all That God has done. I pray His name will be praised through my sharing this. Let His name be praised and Glorified forever and ever. 

August short post

This is a quick hello from August. The weather has turned and so have the leaves. In fact as I write this there are more on the ground than on the trees. We have had the hard frost that has turned the morning glories leaves into evenings old newspaper. The one that was hacked all to bits by the children and used by mom to clean the windows and maybe even put out for the dog. You get it. NOT pretty anymore.


But this is. This is nice.




And just as the summer brings you green beauty and fresh carrots. Fall brings you orange leaves and carrots with a touch of frost which turn out to better tasting than those fresh summer ones.






And I know from a trusted source (my sister-in-law) that bees will soon go into their winter huddle and hope they stored up enough food for the winter.


Sounds good to me. I think a winter huddle sounds like a pleasant thing to take part in. They will do no work but to survive with what they have stored up until next spring.




And we will go into the next year working on learning more about numbers and sentence structure. Maybe if I do enough teaching I will learn more too. This one is moving into grade 2/3. The beauty of homeschooling, take each subject at the level they are at.


And this one will continue to spend most of her time flitsing about from one thing to the next, though Lego is her long standing favorite. There will also be intermittent reading lessons and starting out with pencil to paper activities.


For something a little new here you might actually see a bit more of me as well. The older one is strong enough to hold up the camera and snap a few shots. Kind of fun and even more strange to be on the other side of the lens. Now I get why they act a little strange with that big black hole staring at them.


A view of Jade from Suzie's eye. We may see different faces from her with her sister behind the lens.


A picnic in the park. Not that long ago was a nice outing. Not that long from now it will be out of the question.






One more fun thing we are starting this year is piano for her. One month in and she loves it. Fun part is that we don't actually have a piano in the house. My brother and his wife have aloud us the daily use of theirs. Which means a daily walk, rain or shine, snow or sleet. I keep telling myself this will be a good thing. Force us out daily.




With Winter Coming around the corner there will be more dreaming of things to come and more little home comforts.




Suzie's view








Hope your summer was pleasant your fall a long one and your winter to come easy on the heart. And hoping you have a wonderful winter huddle.

Thanks giving video

Just a little something I threw together after thanksgiving weekend. Hope you enjoy.


thanksgiving from Angie Kroeker on Vimeo.

Robins come early

These pictures and videos were taken on March 27th. There are about 6 robins that were in the bush just outside our window. In the end though I counted about 10 all at one time. And that was not counting the ones in our neighbors yard. It was great fun to watch them.


The early return from Angie Kroeker on Vimeo.

I had never seen so many robins in one place at one time. This video explained that to me.



We are so looking forward to spring here. Can't wait for the snow to stop coming back. Till then here's to watching the birds even if they are suffering. Poor things.

Just some picturs I too awhile back.

I came across these two spending some time in the light of their bed room window. It begged for my camera to find them. And so here are my favorites from that day.





(This look makes me think of her dad. Just studying something, can't say what)